Valspar last week reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2016 earnings of $1.37 per share, 13 cents below the consensus estimate, and revenue fell 3.8% to $1.11 billion, but TheStreet.com says the earnings miss "shouldn't affect" the combination of the companies. The deal "appears ready to close by the end of the first quarter (in April)," the website notes, though the companies twice have felt compelled to issue statements in response to New York Post stories claiming that federal regulators have concerns about the deal.

The combined company would have revenue in excess of $15.6 billion, TheStreet.com notes — about $1.4 billion more revenue than its closest competitor, PPG Industries. About 76% of revenue would come from the United States, according to the story, while 24% would come from overseas. That's critical, TheStreet.com notes, because the global paint and coatings business "is worth about $120 billion a year, and North America represents just 19% of the total. The two big opportunities for the merged company are Asia Pacific, at 42% of the worldwide demand, and Europe, which represents 27% of the global demand for paint and coating."

The merged company "believes it can save as much as $280 million by 2018," the website says. "About 45% of the savings would come from lower raw materials cost, as the company is able to buy larger volumes of raw inputs. About 42% of the expense reduction would come from lower selling, general and administrative expenses (i.e. layoffs). Over the longer term, the company believes it can save as much as $320 million by combining the companies."

THE MEN BEHIND THE KING

JOHNNY NUNEZ/GETTY IMAGES

Rich Paul and one of his big-name clients, Tristan Thompson, at All-Star Weekend in 2012. (Paul is the shorter one, if you couldn't guess.)

Maverick Carter and Rich Paul, the forces behind the growing LeBron James business empire, earn a spot on this Business Insider list of the 50 most influential people behind the scenes in sports — the "managers, coaches, agents, reporters, and owners who are responsible for what we watch when we watch sports."

They're No. 38 on the list. Here's the Business Insider description:

Paul and Carter are childhood friends who also happened to be friends with LeBron James. They've leveraged that friendship, in different ways, into massively influential sports business careers. Paul founded Klutch Sports, an agency that represents James and a handful of other professional athletes. Carter, meanwhile, is James' business partner, helping him in everything from producing TV shows to signing a lifetime deal with Nike rumored to be worth $1 billion.

PAY ATTENTION TO THEM

BLOOMBERG

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, is part of exclusive group of "the most intriguing and important people" in Washington, D.C., in 2017, according to this analysis from The Wall Street Journal.

This group comprises the 10 Senate Democrats who will be up for re-election in 2018 in states Republican Donald Trump carried in November.

From the story:

They will be the Democrats most susceptible to pressure to break ranks and support the initiatives of a President Trump, which means that on key issues they figure to hold the balance of power. They could provide the additional votes required to get Senate Republicans from the 52 seats they hold to the 60 votes they will need to break the filibusters that stand as the biggest roadblock to the Republican agenda. Or they could decline to do so, thereby dooming key elements of that agenda.

The Democratic 10 divide into two subgroups, those from states Trump "carried easily and those from states he barely won," The Journal notes. In the former category are West Virginia's Joe Manchin, North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp, Montana's Jon Tester, Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Indiana's Joe Donnelly. Then there are senators from states where Trump had narrow victories: Pennsylvania's Bob Casey, Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin, Florida's Bill Nelson and Michigan's Debbie Stabenow. And "somewhere in the middle," The Journal notes, is Brown, from a state Trump won by eight points.

Ideologically, Brown is the most liberal of the 10.

"The key question is where some combination of ideological affinity and political pressure might compel some of these susceptible Democrats to cross party lines to support the Trump agenda," The Journal concludes. "That is most likely to happen on environmental issues, where home-state politics may push these swing Democrats into line with the Trump agenda, Senate aides say. It is less clear that Republicans can woo enough of them to get to 60 votes on questions such as dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial regulations."

You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio. If Northwestern wins the Pinstripe Bowl today against Pitt, I'll be in an especially good mood.

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